Disaster Recovery Journal

We have all heard the news that gasoline is in short supply along the east coast, especially in New York City, New Jersey and the shore of Connecticut. But why is gasoline selling at 19 cents lower per gallon in Upstate New York?

Refineries and distributors of petroleum products have a supply chain that demands they "move" product and accept new deliveries. With fewer sales along the east coast due to power outages, the supply on hand must go somewhere else. No one can purchase normal amounts of gasoline in the nation's most demanding market.

Well, in theory the worst of Hurricane Sandy is now over. But for hundreds of thousands of people, the destruction left behind is a large barrier to getting over the storm's destruction. With some people trying to get back to normal - battling traffic to get into Manhattan there are many many other people who are facing lost homes, missing belongings, the loss of businesses and many unanswered questions.

The East Coast is in the early days of realizing how much Sandy has really impacted folks. While some will be wringing their hands suggesting that people, government, and business should have been better prepared - there really are no clear cut answers. In coming days we will learn of communities, businesses, people and institutions that were prepared for such a disaster and we'll hear and read stories of those that weren't. Now is not a time for placing blame and pointing fingers - but rather a time to come together and support those that we can.

As Hurricane Sandy headed towards Manhattan earlier this week, data centers across New York tested their emergency systems and prepared for the hit.  However, for one ISP, this was simply not enough to prevent this freak storm from affecting their data center in lower Manhattan. 

Hurricane Sandy flooded the entire basement of Datagram’s data center on Monday, requiring it to be shut down to avoid infrastructure damage.  Luckily, many of Datagram’s clients already had backup and disaster recovery services with the company’s secondary location in Connecticut and were able to remain up during the storm because of the failover protection provided to them.  That's the good thing about cloud hosting - your data is never in just one location. One data center could undergo failure and your company data will remain completely safe. 

In Schoharie, New York, where over 200 homes were damaged by Hurricane Irene in 2011, the community is demonstrating resiliency today, Halloween, in the throes of Hurricane Sandy. With so many homes, streets, sidewalks, and other potential hazards due to flooding, the community celebrated Halloween with "Trunk or Treat." Several community residents bring their vehicles to a central parking lot, decorate their trunks, tailgates or hatch backs, and invite children to "Trunk or Treat" by stopping at each vehicle. Many homes were uninhabitable in 2011, and many still are. Without safe passage along debris-laden streets in the village, the idea provides a safe and enjoyable way for children to have fun on Halloween.

This is one terrific example of resiliency. Others observed this year are the e-mails sent by insurance companies and banks to customers who may have been impacted by Hurricane Sandy. My insurance agency sent me an e-mail with instructions on how to contact them and how to file a claim if damages occurred due to Hurricane Sandy. Banks have sent messages to customers indicating relaxation of due dates on credit cards if the customer loses access to either electronic or postal payments.

By Greg Marbais, Avalution Consulting
Article originally posted on Avalution Consulting’s Blog

Many business continuity professionals face shrinking budgets and, because of an expanding business continuity program scope and aggressive recovery objectives, lack the time necessary to “touch” all areas of the organization and optimally prepare for disruptive events. As a result, practitioners need a way to create repeatable processes to execute recurring planning activities in a decentralized manner while making efficient use of the organization’s personnel to comply with management’s expectations. One approach we often find useful in rolling out a standardized, thorough, efficient and repeatable process for business continuity activities is the creation of a business continuity program toolkit. A business continuity toolkit typically contains a set of instructional narratives, as well as templates, tools and examples to help dispersed personnel appropriately execute business continuity planning activities consistent with organizational standards.

Sometimes after you migrate your business data and applications to the cloud via cloud servers, it is easy to forget that data security is something that should be consistently monitored.  There are a few things to consider after your company’s migration to the cloud to ensure your data stays safe at all times. 

I just downloaded the updated Rules and Regulations spreadsheet... To say there is a lot of great content and information in this spreadsheet would be an understatement. This Rules and Regulations spreadsheet was compiled by a team of industry experts (all members of the DRJ EAB). 

The most recent update to this resource was in August 2012, and I thought it would be a good idea to write about different rules and regulations that you might not know about, have been recently amended or added or you might not fully understand. (Yes, this is me urging you to post comments about which rules and regulations you would like me to investigate and write about for you!) 

Recently, DR/BCP professionals have sent me inquiries about how to handle crisis management or crisis communication, especially during a DR event.  DR/BCP professionals may be highly involved in managing a data or system recovery and unable to devote attention to managing the entire crisis that may result. They need crisis management professionals on their team.  It wouldn't be practical to have a crisis management professional on each DR/BCP team, but it w0uld be an excellent time to partner with the corporate or organizational crisis management/crisis communication professional.

I've done Incident Management Team training for private sector organizations, sometimes at several of their critical facilities across the nation.  The Incident Command System (ICS) model provides a framework for integrating crisis management, crisis communication and DR/BCP operations when disaster strikes.  Most private sector organizations have found ICS to be extremely helpful and affordable if it has be tailored to their business and presented by consultants who understand both the private and public sector uses of ICS.  Private sector CEOs also see the benefit in being compatible with public emergency response organizations.

The GAP in DR/BCP/EM Technology

Recently I attended a concert at my grandchildren’s school in a small, rural community in Upstate New York.  A small child in the row behind me was using what appeared to me to be a tablet computer. Amazed by the use of technology, even by very young children, I had thoughts of how widespread the use of sophisticated technology had become, even in remote areas.  There have been times when I felt government agencies and some businesses assumed the presence and use of technologies to be far greater than actual.  I challenged a DHS employee on the use of GIS and various mapping capabilities, stating that rural communities lacked such capabilities. He replied that his information was just the opposite, that the use of GIS and other mapping functions was very popular and widespread.